3259093995

Architecture being in a certain sense, petrified history, you may learn a great deal of the history of a town by its buildings. —In order not to tire you, I am in this paper only going to give you an outline of the coming into existence of Copenhagen." C Exavations for new buildings having been made near the harbour have clearly showed us, that already once upon a time, as we say in the fairytales, a little town lay there along the shore of “0resund”. In this paper I am going to deal with Copenhagen merely from an architectural point of view, and I shall therefore begin about the year 1200, for before that time no buildings of importance had existed. The founder of Copenhagen is the bishop Absalon, whose statue you see over the entrance of the new Town Hall; here he is represented as a prelate, and in the other statue of him in the “H0jbropla,ds” you may recognise him as a brave warrior on horseback, looking towards the Royal Palace. On this very spot, he erected his own castle, by means of which he was able to protect the little town against pirates, so that it prospered and spread very quickly. The castle of the bishop Absalon was probably built of heavy oak timber and somewhat like the norman castles we